Make it a white Christmas this year and avoid the red

With less than five monthly pay slips to go before Christmas, a survey commissioned for Britannia Building Society has revealed that 47% of people in the UK are not saving specifically for the festive season, even though they anticipate it will cost them around £620 this year.

The average cost of Christmas rises for households with children who can expect to pay over £200 more at roughly £840. Despite this 36% of households with children claim not to save any money specifically for Christmas; even though they anticipate the cost of toys and festive entertainment.

The survey shows people should start saving around £124 each month from August to avoid getting into debt with loans and credit card bill repayments that make the New Year far from happy.

37% of people who celebrate Christmas said they will use some kind of borrowing to cover the cost of Christmas and will pay for it later; with four per cent of people who borrow saying they expect it will take 11 months or more to clear their Christmas debt.

Deciding to only pay off the minimum credit card payments would take more than 16 years to clear the debt at a cost of almost £740 in interest alone. And the five per cent of people surveyed who expect to spend a generous £2,000 or more this Christmas are likely to face even larger bills if they fund Christmas by using some kind of borrowing.

The survey revealed that a savvy nine per cent of adults in the UK do save for 11-12 months to ensure they can afford Christmas. As well as generating funds for the festive season these people could also benefit from receiving interest as their savings grow. By avoiding credit card interest payments and using a savings account such as Britannia's Regular Saver Mini Cash ISA paying 5.70% tax free interest, these organised savers could add £46 to their Christmas pot by the time they need to retrieve the funds in December. This could buy 4 boxes of crackers or 2 bottles of champagne making Christmas go with a real bang!

Those saving with Britannia will also benefit from the Britannia Membership Reward scheme that returns a share of the Society's profits to its members to reward their loyalty. The average payment this year was approximately £56. Add this to the interest earned from a Christmas savings account and Savvy Britannia savers will be more than £100 better off in the New Year.

The survey further revealed that the modern man is far from an Ebenezer Scrooge as UK men anticipate they will spend more than women with the average cost of the festive season being £710.00 for men versus £537.20 for women. But women are better savers with 11% of women claiming they will have saved for 11-12 months for the festive period compared to just 7% of men.

Neville Richardson, Britannia's Group Chief Executive, explained "This survey shows that the majority of people are not planning for their Christmas expenditure, even though they have a good idea of how much it is likely to cost. However, it is still not too late to start saving for Christmas right now and those who do, can really reap the benefits of being organised with their finances by adding pounds in interest to their own contributions."